by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

LAS VEGAS - During Matt Kenseth's first test session with Joe Gibbs Racing, he missed a gear shift and caused his new team to change an engine.

A couple months later, eight laps into his first official day of practice for the 2013 season, he caused a multi-car wreck at Daytona International Speedway and damaged his new No. 20 car.

The uncharacteristic mistakes by the 2003 Sprint Cup champion didn't exactly get Kenseth off on the right foot with his new team. A blown Toyota engine during the Daytona 500 didn't help.

But winning has a funny way of making everything better.

Kenseth celebrated his 41st birthday Sunday by winning the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, scoring a victory in just his third race with Gibbs. After 13 years at Roush Fenway Racing in a Ford, the veteran driver took a leap of faith in an attempt to inject some new life into his career. So far, so good.

"Nobody has put any pressure on my except for myself, but I also know that Coach (Gibbs) hired me to come in there and climb in that car and win," Kenseth said. "So you certainly want to do that and you don't want to disappoint people."

Despite a serious challenge from hard-charging Kasey Kahne, Kenseth was able to hold his position for the final 15 laps with some flawless driving on old tires - much to Kahne's chagrin.

"When I caught him, I was like, 'Man, this is not the guy you want to have to race with 10 to go, because he's going to do everything right,' " Kahne said.

He was correct. Kenseth had a top-10 car all day, but it wasn't until some late pit strategy that he finally took the lead.

On the final pit stop, Kenseth asked new crew chief Jason Ratcliff to make whatever decision it took to keep him toward the front. Ratcliff agreed and decided not to take any tires while most other teams took at least two. In fact, Ratcliff didn't even wait until Kenseth's gas tank was full before sending him away.

"I was grinning inside as I was leaving pit road," Kenseth said. "... You're hoping, dreaming to work with somebody that doesn't only prepare race cars to win races, but call races to win races."

Though Kenseth is an understated man who prefers not to call attention to himself, Ratcliff said the team was confident it was just getting started on what could be a very successful season together.

"We've got Matt and we're going to win a lot of races, I think," Ratcliff said. "He'll probably get mad at me for saying that because he doesn't like that. But I knew that we would get to Victory Lane at some point, and to do it this early in the season is great."

Kenseth also became the third Sprint Cup driver to win a points race on their birthdays.

Cale Yarborough won twice on his March 27 birthday (in 1977 at North Wilkesboro Speedway and 1993 at Atlanta Motor Speedway). Kyle Busch won at Richmond International Raceway on May 2, 2009, his 24th birthday.

The win was the 50th for Toyota, which recently battled reliability problems with its engines. Toyota Racing Development engineers were confident the issue was not widespread and that success would quickly reassure nervous crew chiefs at JGR and Michael Waltrip Racing.

Kenseth was never rattled by the mechanical troubles, he said - nor did it make him question his move from Ford to Toyota.

"The stuff runs really, really good," he said. "Obviously, they knew there was a problem there and they were going to work on it and fix it."

Sunday also was key for NASCAR's new Gen 6 car, which was being raced on a 1.5-mile track for the first time. The debut seemed to be met with success; per NASCAR's loop data, drivers tallied more than 1,000 more green-flag passes than in last year's race and had 131 green-flag lead changes - the most since NASCAR began keeping track in 2005.